Are you a Lewis Hamilton fan? If so, why? What is it about his personality that you love? Those of us that wander the paddock with F1’s “megastar” are divided in our thoughts about him. Maybe it’s just the photographers. We mean nothing to the newly blonde king of cool. I’ve heard stories from journalists about how nice he is. He notices new shoes, new jewelry, new hair styles, a new pen. It sounds like they’re describing a different person to the one we point our lenses at. Ask the photographers what we think, and we all have the same interpretation. When he walks in in the morning, he dips his head, looks straight down at the ground and will generally avoid us at all costs. And this happens week in and week out. But then he steals images from us, and posts them as his own. Oh the hypocrisy. “I dislike you, but I need you.”

Is he a super model? A FANTASTICALLY quick racing driver? A multimillionaire playboy? Yes. All of the above. But he also has the personality to match each. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. On any given day in the F1 paddock, you never know which Lewis you’ll get. And that’s a personality trait I don’t admire. In friends, girlfriends, or people.

But let’s do a quick compare and contrast with four time champion, Sebastian Vettel. Seb is a leader. You could tell, even from the early days at Red Bull that the team wanted to rally behind him. I’ve seen more than once after a race, including at Monza this year, Seb was in the garage helping his team pack up. Seb walks into the paddock the same way every day. Head held high. No ducking or dodging the photographers. He answers questions from the media with a hint of sarcasm and grounded truth. He smiles, and talks to anyone that will listen. He is also incredibly private in his personal life. He reminds me so much of Schumacher in that sense. Seb even had a baby this past weekend! He became a father for the second time, and no one even knew it until 3 days later. Meanwhile, we know every move that Hamilton makes. We even know when one of his dogs take a $hit! Their personalities are so completely polar opposite that it’s barely even worth continuing with this. But both are world champions, and both represent the sport. One just does it better than the other, in my opinion. As a friend of mine said recently, and I’ll leave this here for you to digest, “Lewis would be the perfect addition to the Kardashian family.”

4 Comments

Your photos are amazing! Love the colors and composition. I look forward to your portfolio next year.

Shaun December 3, 2015

Wonderful images Jamey, and good coverage of F1 rather than 1 team.

Your comments about Hamilton are interesting. Living in the UK as you can imagine the media are very bias towards Lewis. It’s all about how he can win. It’s nice to see the rest of the paddock being covered and I would like to see a more balanced approach from our own media.